[NormalCarpetRide]

Originally Posted by motownewave

Thanks everyone. Let me ask though: is it possible that a lot of the Southerners who strongly opposed integration and the civil rights movement weren't really racist at all (even though their ancestors who went to war to preserve slavery were), but were legitimately concerned that Marxism/communism (or maybe radical Islam, via the Nation of Islam) would enter America through certain civil rights activists? Bayard Rustin was a known communist, and Malcolm X was a radical Muslim (at first; he was assassinated by former friends after renouncing his past beliefs, but the public never seemed to forgive him for his earlier stances), and both of these men were examples of many others with the same beliefs, beliefs disguised by the civil rights umbrella.

Perhaps the racist beliefs of the Confederates, after being passed down two generations, largely died in the Great Depression (in which the Democratic South stayed Democratic despite the very liberal FDR as a Democratic president), and felt another blow in the aftermath of WWII, once it was revealed the Nazis and Japanese both tortured/slaughtered millions of innocent people all in the name of race, while meanwhile, the two dictatorships were breaking all human rights standards in a war against America?

It is a difficult to wrap one's head around, but in my experience many older Southerners hold several conflicting beliefs in their heads about race. My father and mother both grew up in rural Alabama communities, but they saw their parents working as peers with black folks, doing the same farm work, masonry work, housekeeping, etc. My mother's family would go and eat supper at the home of a black family they were friends with, which was probably unheard of in the 1950s and 60s.

AND STILL, they both have complicated feelings about race. It's as if there is a difference between Squire, my friend and co-worker who is black, and "black people" as a race. Of course, there isn't, but somehow the thought exists in my parents' minds.

[Shalako]

"Little George" was a politician and thus would be anything that would benefit his advancement in that arena--no different in that respect than politicians of today. I met Wallace once when he was running for President--he was most of all a character. Bobby Kennedy, complete with attitude, once came to Montgomery for the express purpose of straightening Wallace out on the subject of integration. George sent a Limo to ferry Bobby to the Capitol. Upon arriving Kennedy was treated to a view of the Confederate Battle Flag flying over the Capitol building. Vintage Wallace.

[TheWiseWino]

Originally Posted by Shalako

"Little George" was a politician and thus would be anything that would benefit his advancement in that arena--no different in that respect than politicians of today.

Outside of the certain members of the Republican Party, I can think of very few politicians who in their pursuit of personal advancement would do so in a manner that would deny the most basic human rights from the citizens that they govern. So trying to minimize Wallace's abject moral failings as just a case of misbegotten political expediency is to deny not only Wallace's complicity in not only Jim Crow but the utter violence that was used to keep it in place. Whether at the time Wallace believed in the inherent superiority of the white race is immaterial to that part of his personal history.